Thanksgiving Chronicle: Ordinary Times and Travels post 6

December 15, 2016December 15, 2016 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

We all love a road trip in the rain, right? Yeah.

We met at the coffee house for a quick group goodbye and whatever breakfast we could handle. Bob and Elizabeth had already left for their drive, and ours was about to start. We were headed to Pennsylvania.

The husband grew up in the row mountains of central PA and over the years we have made some pilgrimages back to visit, but not as often as we should have. We’d been trying to arrange it all summer but there was one disruption after another. With winter setting in we knew the time was short before safe travel would be uncertain and Mom had graciously offered us the chance to go there on the way to Florida, in her car. Upon hearing this, both daughters, who also had not been there in quite a while wanted to come also. And because we didn’t all fit in Mom’s car, poor Ryan, Esther’s friend, (who perhaps did not have much of a choice) decided to share his rental car and go visiting with us.

Who calls up relatives they haven’t seen in years and tells them six people, some of whom are not even related to them, are “dropping by” for three days, and, by the way, do you have a place for us to sleep? Me. I do.

Visualizing the trip in my imagination, we would swap around at each stop and share time between the two cars. We were going to read to each other and have meaningful conversation, especially between us women – you know how valuable “car time” can be. That didn’t happen. As it was, we started out divided into elders and youngers and that’s the way it stayed the entire time. We just couldn’t seem to end up at the same place in spite of frantic texting at 70 mph.

“We are at service plaza at mile 169 for gas and likely Burger King (one of Gram’s favs) 12:46 PM”

“We will probably miss you unless you linger but I think we’re closing the gap. 12:47 PM”

“There’s a Panera here! We’ll take our time if you want to stop. 12:58 PM”

“We are at 162. We’ll stop if you are still there. 1:15 PM”

“Still here eating soup. 1:22 PM”

“Sorry. We thought you’d have left and went past it 1:22 PM”

Our trip planner, Julia, who blanched at the thought of never getting beyond Interstate fast food, had picked out a mid morning coffee stop for us, and a dinner stop, both designed to give us some local culture and a significant memory of some kind. The coffee stop got scrapped before we were past Detroit, however, we elders did not hear of it until quite a bit later. We stopped at an Interstate fast food place, ho hum. The youngers went downtown Detroit to some more trendy place as I recall.(Great Lakes Coffee)

This trip was purported to be around 8-9 hours. I think for us it was about 12 as we leap-frogged past each other on I-80, taking different lunch stops and fuel stops at different times. We did finally get together for dinner in Danville, PA. This time our trip planner hit a home run and we all had a good meal and an interesting time at the Old Forge Brewery. Spacious and rustic it was, and the food was good. These days the young crowd puts a lot of stock in craft beers and exotic coffees, which is okay – everyone has something they care about. Someone has to keep all these brew pubs and coffee houses in business (although they didn’t do it for my brother in Michigan, did they?)

Our last most scenic miles were in the dark so we had no views except for the twisty, turning, hilly road in our headlights and the farmhouses and villages built, literally, right next to the road. We arrived at Ron (the husband’s brother) and Deanna’s house and sorted out our sleeping spots, visited a little, and went to bed. But, there were some plans, and we had three days….

Thanksgiving Chronicle: Ordinary Times and Travel post 5

December 14, 2016December 14, 2016 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

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In these days of cities and all their attractions, a pastime of young and old alike seems to be exploring. That is one of our family traditions. Whenever we gather, we try to look around us and visit some interesting place. On the Friday after Thanksgiving we bundled up (brrr….), piled into two cars and went to Port Huron, MI.

Our first stop was a museum of sorts but more. I can’t remember the name of it but the words “boat nerds” was somewhere on the building. It was on the St. Clair River which connects Lake Huron to Lake St. Clair and the port in Detroit. There is a lot of ship traffic past this place which boasts a coffee shop, an unobstructed view of the river, and knowledgeable people who call themselves, yes, boat nerds. They call out all kinds of interesting information and stories about each ship as it passes. On display are ship artifacts dredged from the river and made into art. It was a “hangout” with a very relaxed atmosphere and quite a bit of business, considering that it was a holiday weekend. We had a good time with this place. We have a few family coffee snobs. We didn’t even try their coffee.

We all tried it on…

even Grandma

Next we went a few streets away to a small shopping district and wandered through some small, artisan-like shops. It was some kind of “small business shopping day” and they got real excited when our group of 10 people came in and probably kind of disappointed when we wandered back out. There were a few purchases, though.

By this time we were getting hungry. Our hosts led us to the Raven Café, a Poe themed coffee house and restaurant that was bursting at the seams with customers. All of us liked the food we ordered. I had a creamy latte, followed by Mushroom with Brie Soup and a half Annabel Lee’s Gorgonzola Cherry salad. It was hard to choose from all the interesting names like “Premature Burial Bacon-Ham Melt” and “Black Cat BLT”. This is definitely a place diners return to. They have a gift shop and live entertainment events regularly, and a nice FaceBook page. Check them out at www.ravencafeph.com . Go there.

Another one of our family traditions, no secret by now, is doing jigsaw puzzles. Some of us are more avid puzzlers than others but we all kind of like to have one going on. Somehow we had brought only one puzzle with us and we finished it on Thanksgiving Day. Cheap puzzles abound at thrift shops and libraries so we were on the lookout as we traveled back to Gary’s coffee shop. We ended up at a thrift/antique shop and it was a long shot, but they had a puzzle. Just one. It was antique, and although I’ve had some very old puzzles (think pieces missing, chewed on, etc…) I had never had a real antique so I bought it, more for the container than the picture. Can you imagine it new for $0.49? It was our second of the season (#puzzlemarathon).

There were many other things we enjoyed over our family time together – I couldn’t begin to mention them all. Many laughs, meals, conversations, hugs and then the inevitable goodbyes. But travel on Thanksgiving Saturday is coming up fast. The journey is definitely not over…

Thanksgiving Chronicle: Ordinary Times and Travels, post 3

December 12, 2016December 12, 2016 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

It does not take a fancy hotel name or reputation to impress me. Nice linens, a decent breakfast and cleanliness are my major interests and we had all three at the Super 8 (the price was right too). The clincher was the sunrise they arranged for us. It brought the saying “red sky at morning, sailors take warning…” to mind so we left fairly early. Well fed and rested, we arrived at the coffee house, the site of our Thanksgiving, by noon.

We call it the coffee house because it was one, briefly. Had it been in a better location, and maybe a better time, it would have been a success. My brother still owns it, partly because he lives in the second story, and partly because it hasn’t sold. It is perfect for family gatherings. Perfect in the sense that the whole lower story is made for people having a good time – plenty of seating at tables, a long bar where we line up the Thanksgiving buffet, an industrial kitchen where we cook last day dishes, a cozy (fake) fireplace, and a TV mounted in a corner tuned to the local football station.

Of course, we were half a day early so we unloaded our food dishes into the fridge at the coffee house and went to settle in our lodgings. Here I must mention my niece and her family. They are house flippers, among other things. Conveniently, they had a house they were staging for sale even as we arrived and we got to “test” it out. Seriously, they are like Chip and Joanna, or Tarrek and Christina – they could have a TV show except for the financial backing part. This was the second lovely house of theirs that I had seen and we gladly moved into the three bedrooms ready for us. It was quite brave of my brother to offer to house all of us this year and we were grateful.

The other afternoon event was waiting for everyone else to arrive. I have two daughters and they were coming from opposite ends of the U.S., one from Jacksonville, Fl flying into Detroit, and one from Seattle flying to Flint with one of her good friends. My nephew, who had arrived earlier from California, drove to Detroit for that pick-up and the others rented a car from Flint. They trickled in, one group at a time, along with another one of my brothers (I have four) and his wife. By the afternoon, the promised storm had begun, the roads were slippery and we got word that a couple of our invited guests had felt it safer to cancel their trip. Our Thanksgiving group was in place except for a local couple who would join us the next day.

Our eclectic group, aged from 2 to 84, seven boys/men and six women, Midwesterners, West coasters, East coasters, two different cultural backgrounds, meat eaters and vegetarians, all gathered to be thankful, make memories and eat. Having all arrived safely, we were already thankful. The eating started that night with soups by Jamie, my niece, and salad. But, of course, the real eating event was yet to come…

Thanksgiving Chronicle: Ordinary Times and Travel post 2

December 11, 2016 Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

Up here in the north woods, we always have the weather to contend with when we travel. The threat of rain turning to snow was scaring us to start our trip a day early. Mom was mentally planning this early departure yesterday when we rolled in from the Minneapolis airport. She had nearly finished her packing and had all the ingredients for the Thanksgiving meal that we had promised to provide, ready to be put together. I baked my pies right away. We planned to pack up in the morning and stay ahead of the storm.

We were making the drive in Mom’s car, which I love to drive. Mom likes to sit in the back seat surrounded by travel food and her pillows and blankets. The husband sits/sleeps in the “death seat” in front, although I try not to think of it that way. We have become fairly comfortable travel companions; the husband talking (a LOT) and Mom listening and passing us sandwiches and celery sticks at regular intervals. I kind of zone out as I drive. My text messages pop up on the Bluetooth digital screen on the dash, which is a really nice feature of the car. It is a Chevy Captiva. I have trouble remembering the model name, but I’m working on associating it with the mental image of a small SUV strapped into the middle seat of an airplane. That should bring it to mind.

It was a beautiful day for our many hours of driving, with no snow, not even a drop of rain. We were on the road by 9 am after packing the car – always a fun challenge. Mom’s part was the hardest since she was trying to think of everything she would need for the next few months. She started weeks ago putting things aside. As we put it all in the back of Captiva, the only thing she couldn’t locate was her money. She knew she had put the bank envelope in some reasonable place, some safe place where it would be easy to find when it was time to go. So much for that. We all searched everyplace we could think of. But I am so proud of Mom. She is able to laugh and let it be all good. We left and the money was either with us in a place we hadn’t remembered yet, or still back in Hayward, to be found later we hoped.

We drove about 9 hours. We traveled east across Wisconsin and for the first three or four hours we encountered only two trucks which we passed. What a change from the places I usually drive. The two lane road was bordered by forest and marshes, pine trees and birch, lots of rivers, streams and lakes. The dominant color was soft gray in varying intensities, with brushes of deep green and brown. We traveled through Winter, Florence, Minquoa and Eagle River before crossing the border into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Escanaba and finally the Mackinac Bridge. We spent the night in the Super 8 in a town called Grayling, leaving only a short trip for the next day.

One of our last conversations driving down I-75 went like this;

The husband, as we were driving in the dark approaching an exit: “The moon looks really strange tonight”. I looked for the moon in the direction the husband was pointing but what I saw in the sky above the tree line was a bright, round orb with a large M on it.

Me: “That’s a Marathon station at the exit. It’s not the moon, in spite of being marked with an M.”

Husband: “Oh, I thought it looked weird.” We were tired and it was only day 2.

Thanksgiving Chronicle: Ordinary Times and Travels

December 10, 2016December 10, 2016 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

The husband and I had been thinking and praying about this trip for weeks. My family often tries to get together at Thanksgiving even though we are geographically scattered. Those of us from Florida have several times found ourselves “snowed in” up in Hayward for the holiday. Last year we combined the get together with Mom’s wish to spend the winter with us. We flew to Wisconsin, traveled in her car to Michigan to have Thanksgiving there with three of my brothers, and then continued on down to Florida. It worked, and we were trying it again this year, hoping it would work again.

Monday, I felt like a captive pretty much all day. I used to think that it was pretty cool getting to travel a lot – flying off to southeast Asia, to Seattle, to Wisconsin – but I am over that. Although I booked our flights weeks ahead of time there were no good seats to choose from. I sat in the window seat on the first leg. There was no chance of getting out over two other people, so I sat for that hour and a half, sleeping against the wall. The second leg was longer and I was in the middle seat, which to me is even more claustrophobic. With the space in front of my feet filled with a back pack, my knees touching the seat ahead of me, and a hefty passenger seated on either side of me, it was like being in a small box for three hours. The worst part of the trip was after the plane landed and everyone who could, stood up, filling the aisle. We waited for 15 minutes before anyone was actually able to leave. We were in the back, of course, and got to watch every person in every row struggle with their luggage. There was nothing to do but wait the eternity until was our turn. In my dreams I become rich and famous by designing a better de-planing procedure and selling it to airlines.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016 (very early): I sat up in bed looking at a clock that showed 5:45 and mentally calculated that it would be 6:45 in my usual time zone – no wonder I was awake. I failed to consider daylight savings time, and so had the person responsible for setting the clock in that room. It was 4:45, so I had some “think time” to consider how it was that I was thousands of miles from where I had been yesterday. I was, always am, properly amazed and thankful for safe travel. Wisconsin in winter is dark late in the morning, dark early in the evening, leaving very little daylight to save, but there was some, finally…

Then and Now: Hatchery Creek

August 26, 2016August 26, 2016 Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

I’m not done recording details about the visit to Hayward, Wisconsin. The Chamber should be paying me for this…

It was thirty years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. Two moms, one with two little boys and one with two little girls, needed the kind of break from routine and stressful lives that only nature can provide. They were campers so they loaded up and traveled to an out of the way spot. It was an abandoned fish hatchery, state land I suppose. The cement tanks that had been embedded in the ground to harbor the young fingerlings had been removed and the field grasses had grown to cover the areas. The small road, two tracks with grass growing in the middle, crossed a stone bridge which covered a creek, Hatchery Creek. Chalk it up to mid-westerners to avoid having to name things, by just calling them what they are.

I was one of the moms. I had driven down the road one day looking for a place of childhood memories.

Sundays, with the whole family in the car, my dad would stop on the way home to look at the fish, in particular the large sturgeon who lived in his own special tank. Other tanks were rippling with the motion of the young fish waiting to be released into northern Wisconsin lakes and streams.

But in 1987 it was obvious that the program had been discontinued and the sign indicated that the natural stream that ran through the property was being restored as a trout habitat. There were no buildings left, no signs of recent activity, just a beautiful meadow surrounded by hills decorated with hardwoods and pines. It was the perfect place to camp. I could hardly wait.

In this day of protected lands, designated camping spots and required permits to camp, it is hard to imagine someone just picking a place in the woods and deciding it’s the place for them. If we were trespassing, I didn’t know it. Plus, we were gutsy women who loved to make independent decisions, and we made the decision of where to put the tent, where to make our campfire and told our kids where they could explore. That’s what they did all afternoon.

There is something so compelling about a creek. It’s more personal and approachable than a river. Rippling and clear, musical, fordable, a creek begs you to follow it up river because it has to start somewhere. What would that look like? This particular stream was easiest to follow if you got in it. The banks were sometimes purposely undercut to provide hiding places for fish and the grass and bushes on the banks were tall. A person who didn’t know the stream was there might have a hard time finding it. But you could walk in the middle in water never more than knee deep and every now and then there would be stones or boulders to stand or sit on. The kids were having the greatest time and we were watching, with cameras in hand.

I had to work my way through head high foliage to get to the place where it looked like water was welling up out of the bottom of the creek. It may not have been the birthplace of the stream but it was certainly adding the major portion of the flow. I have a weird fear of holes spewing an endless flow of water. If I stepped in there would I disappear, falling endlessly like Alice down the rabbit hole, only this hole is full of water which kind of rules out being able to breathe?

I’m again back in childhood, ice skating on the farm pond and hearing Dad tell us to stay away from a certain area where springs kept the ice thin. Springs were mysterious, like faucets that never get turned off.

The rest of our camping trip was spent cooking supper, sitting around the campfire with visiting grandparents, and sleeping through the night with one eye open. It was “that season” of the year and our tick phobia was full blown by the time we left, nevertheless it was a memorable time for me, and that is why I revisit Hatchery Creek most every time I go home to Hayward.

Two weeks ago daughter Esther and I went to the area where we had camped and observed the ritual of wading in the creek. She was the youngest of the four children present and does not remember the time and the place as clearly as I do. It has changed. It is now an access point for a series of trails including the Birkebeiner ski trail. It is used year round by many people who want to hike or single track through the woods, or skiers practicing their hill climbing and cross country skills. People do not camp there and I feel a bit sneaky (and smug, and fortunate) for having done so. The creek is still flowing, although it seems to have taken second place to the footpaths through the woods. I know where that spring is. I still find it mysterious and I still wonder how it keeps coming, and coming, and coming…

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Lake a Day Challenge: Company Lake

August 16, 2016August 17, 2016 ShirleyjdietzLeave a comment

This is the last post of my challenge since this visit to the northwoods has come to an end. This lake was a surprise for me. Although the road my sister-in-law and I were biking had been around forever, and was named Company Lake Road, I hadn’t been aware of how pretty it was or of the lake it was named for. The lake was breathtaking in the morning light when we came past it. Unfortunately I had forgotten my camera and had to come back later in the day for photos. It was still pretty gorgeous.

I have to say that this spot is typical of the beauty in the Hayward area and the northwoods in general. These small lakes, marshes and streams are common. Fish, frogs, turtles, cranes, crows, eagles, geese, ducks, swans, chipmunks, skunks, badgers, otters, beaver, fox, wolves, bear, deer… you name it, it’s here and can often be seen close up. I will admit that I did not get wet in Company Lake but I have an excuse. I will suffer with mosquitoes, but I will not go close to poison ivy, and the bank where I took these pictures was full of it. Just enjoy these pictures of late summer in north Wisconsin and know that it is a wonderful place to be.

Lake a Day Challenge: Nelson Lake and Totogatic River

August 16, 2016August 16, 2016 Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

Another creative place name as we approach Nelson Lake Dam

There is a large lake a few miles north of Hayward and grandfather’s farm that has a story connected with it. I loved hearing my dad tell me about the days when there was a valley there instead of a lake. He was very young when conservationist Frank Nelson proposed a dam to be built on the Totogatic River to create “a lake or backwater, suitable for fish and which would furnish a refuge and breeding ground for all kinds of wildlife.” Dad had memories of accompanying his father who was helping to remove as much timber from the land to be flooded as possible. The dam was completed in 1936 and Nelson Lake was created. It’s hard to imagine the valley that lies beneath its waters now. Much of the shoreline is wild and undeveloped and the lake is known for excellent fishing.

This wild jumble of blooms completely obscured the stair down to the restrooms.

The park at the dam has been a favorite picnic spot for my parent’s generation, for my generation and hopefully for the next generation. I have done my part by taking my niece and nephew there to explore. It was a “must visit” spot for my lake of the day challenge.

Mom and I drove out and found the park a little overgrown but much the same as we had known it. Wild sumac and flowers covered the bank by the dam and the boat landing was busy with fishermen coming in from a day on the lake. There was a lot of algae bloom in the water which made it a little uninviting as far as swimming was concerned. I stayed with the one foot dip. But the views were fantastic and after reading some of the history of the lake here , I was more appreciative of the part the lake and its accompanying flowage played in local commerce. There is a large island in the middle of the lake accessible only by boat and I think exploring it is going on the list for my next visit.

Nelson Lake behind the dam, island in view.

Water is high now and there is good flow going over the dam.

The Totogatic River downstream from the dam and highway bridge.

Lake a Day Challenge: Spider Lake

August 15, 2016 Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

A spider is probably not anyone’s favorite image to attach to a memory or a place, but when you grow up calling a place Spider Lake, you eventually quit thinking about real spiders and just think about the lake. This lake is really a chain of lakes, four to be exact, connected by short rivers. For many years one of my cousins has owned the Spider Lake Golf Club and Resort and it was only recently I learned that it is actually located on Clear Lake in the Spider Lake chain. Big Spider (ugh!), Little Spider and North Lake make up the other three.

My visit this summer was prompted in part by a reunion of my cousin’s family, as well as my own. This was the day we met at Spider Lake Golf Club for a wonderful dinner cooked on the grill and lots of family fellowship. Cousins from as far away as Alaska and Florida (me) got reacquainted with each other, and fed mosquitoes. It seems the mosquitoes are a force to be reckoned with everywhere near the water or woods in Wisconsin. The young people hunted frogs, played catch and got underfoot. The rest of us visited and ate. It’s kind of a standard theme among us. Always have food.

One of the most interesting activities at our gathering was making an African Praise Poem about mom. Mom is one of three surviving siblings in her family of seven and a favorite among all the cousins. After dinner we “poets” and mom talked together about the important events of mom’s life and the memories we had surrounding those times. There were tears. All these recollections were recorded and will be arranged, poetically and mysteriously, in the form of the African Praise Poem. We’ll all get to see it when daughter Esther puts the finishing touches on it. We asked mom how it felt to be the subject of an interactive poem like this and she admitted that it felt a little like being at her own memorial service, but not a bad thing overall.

I think Spider Lake is known for being a good fishing lake, and there are resorts and cabins available there still. It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful lake.

Poet and photographerfor this shoot, my daughter Esther

Possibly the oldest, my Uncle Wendell (with two l’s) and the youngest, Hazel Erikson.

#5: Lake Hayward

August 14, 2016August 10, 2016 Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

It’s not just about the lakes here in northern Wisconsin. It’s about the whole outdoors experience. Part of it, for those of us who grew up here, is berry picking. I’m talking about serious berry picking, where you gear up with two layers of pants, long sleeves, a belt to hang your berry bucket on, head protection against the deer flies, lots of bug repellant and your sixth sense of where not to go, where not to step, what not to touch.

We went berry picking this morning because my brother had reported seeing bountiful berry patches on our farmland near Round Lake. He had been cutting trails in the overgrown woods and fields with his flail mower (he does this for fun, yeah???) and wanted to take us out in his Kubota tractor to where we could just stand in the trail and pick all the blackberries we wanted. Sounded good. We went early because of forecasted severe weather coming our way.

Mom and I drove out to the field/woods in her SUV and met my brother and his wife. We were startled by a graceful buck deer that ran across our path. We were also aware that there were bear in the area, as seen on my brother’s woods cam, but thankfully we didn’t flush any of them out this time. We also saw large flocks of Canada geese and several sandhill cranes in the harvested oat field we drove through. After hunting for a while we did find what we were really looking for, berries, hiding amidst the goldenrod and pines. Unfortunately, the storm found us and we had to cut our picking short. But now we know where they are, and we’re not telling.

Goldenrod. I’ve never seen so much of it in one place.

Today’s lake is Lake Hayward, which is formed by a dam on the Namekagon right in the town of Hayward. Here the town has its beach park and I remember many picnics and swims in this spot. I remember it being a lot larger than it really is, oh well. It is close to another Hayward landmark, the “big fish”. Hayward being the Musky Capital of the World someone had to build a giant muskelunge for tourists to get the full experience. If you want to, you can climb the stairs and view the town from the fish’s mouth, something you don’t get to do everyday. Today’s photo credit goes to Mom who accompanied me.